Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) the number-one U.S. consumer electronics retailer, reported a higher-than-expected rise in same-store sales in the fourth quarter, helped by strong customer demand, an improving competitive environment and strong sales in the gaming category.
The retailer said same-store sales rose 9% in the fourth quarter ended Feb. 3. Analysts on average had expected a 2.9% rise, according to Thomson Reuters.
The Richfield, Minnesota-based company's net income fell to $364 million, or $1.23 per share, in the quarter, from $607 million, or $1.91 per share, a year earlier, impacted by items from the new U.S. tax reform. Excluding these charges, earnings were $2.42 per share.
The company's revenue rose to $15.36 billion, beating estimates of $14.5 billion.
Also Thursday came word that Best Buy is planning to close all of its roughly 250 smaller-format mobile phone stores. CEO Hubert Joly told employees Wednesday in an internal memo of the impending closures.
The stores, which are about 1,400 square feet in size compared with Best Buy's bigger boxes of 40,000 square feet, are scheduled to close by the end of May, he said. The mobile stores are almost exclusively located within malls, with a few scattered throughout open-air strip centers.
Joly said revenue from Best Buy's standalone mobile stores represents roughly 1% of the electronics retailer's overall sales, and the square footage of the stores altogether only accounts for about 1% of Best Buy's total real estate footprint.
Shares in Best Buy acquired $2.47, or 3.4%, to $74.91 in mid-morning trade on Thursday.
